The
Tradition:During
the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a group of monks left Glastonbury
for Strata Florida Abbey, in South Wales, where they hoped to escape from
the ravages of Henry VIII's commissioners. However, the Royal officials soon
reached Strata Florida too and the monks were forced to flee over the hills
to nearby Nanteos House. Here, the old Prior of Glastonbury became chaplain
to the local lord, Mr. Powell, and the other monks became servants around
the estate. So things carried on until the monks eventually started to die
off. On his death-bed, the last monk revealed to Mr. Powell that his little
group had brought with them, from Glastonbury, the Holy Grail which had been
brought to Britain by their Abbey's founder, St.
Joseph of Arimathea. This was subsequently entrusted to the
Powell family "until the church shall claim her own".

Subsequent
History: The tradition, unfortunately, only
appears to date from Victorian times. The
"Nanteos Cup" as the supposed Grail became known remained at the
Manor, attracting many pilgrims and performing many apparent miracles until
1952. All this is well documented. At this date, the last of the Powells
died. The house (and the cup) were then sold to a Major Merrilees, who later
moved to Herefordshire, taking the Nanteos Cup with him. Then, it resided,
for many years, in a bank vault. It is a small wooden
vessel (5" diameter, 3" deep) in a very poor state today, due to
pilgrims' biting large chunks out of it, over the years, in order to aid
recovery from their ills. It was after being lent out one such believer that
the Nanteos Cup was stolen in July 2014. It has not been recovered.